The HVT, Agent X41822N
by MekmekAU
Summary: Gives a different perspective on the raid by the 22nd Marine division and Mal Kelerchian to save November Terra from the Gutter. It's a fairly long one, this is my first attempt at Fanfic, I do enjoy Nova's lore, if you have positive or negative feedback please let me now; otherwise I hope you enjoy.


**The "HVT"**

-I strangely had weird ideas that Ndoci resembled Commander Sarah Palmer from the Halo universe, even though she isn't portrayed as a typical good-guy in the books, I like to portray her as someone a lot more crucial and fundamental than the lore gives her credit. Mal I think didn't receive as much credit here as he did in the lore, particularly how Keith depicts his importance. I'd like to think I added a degree of militaristic realism behind what the lore shows happened, also some blowing up out of proportions as to how powerful Nova really is despite her condition. I modified, edited and added components to the original story to add a sense of depth behind what I wrote, though there are some parts which are clearly fabricated and even some plot flaws which I tried to avoid but couldn't come up with any good ideas unless I completely redid earlier parts.

-This scene for those who are wondering is a snippet out of the final moments of Starcraft Ghost: Nova (2006) by Keith R.A DeCandido, and is infact I guess you could say the climax of the book, showing the rescue attempt of Nova in much greater detail, focusing solely on her condition, and trying to base a large part of it on who she is, what she is, and why is she important and how awesome she is as I don't think I've seen anyone portray her as powerful as she truly is in the lore.

-I do not own any of the content, I do not claim the original Story from Starcraft Ghost: Nova (2006) by Keith R.A DeCandido; I do not own any of the characters in the story either.

The Valkyrie VTOL gunship disembarked from the classified location on Tarsonis, on it contained the entirety of the 22nd Confederate Marine division, plus one; the Wrangler, Malcom "Mal" Kelerchian accounting to 23 people on board with room to spare. Armed to the teeth each and every one of the Marines on board, including their CO had been personally briefed by the Director, secure the HVT by whatever means necessary. The job was made slightly difficult as Mal's specific requests were that he be given one hour on the ground before the Quick Reaction Force of the 22nd start kicking doors in. Nevertheless the CO of the 22nd, Major Esmerelda Ndoci reluctantly agreed to his terms, as after all, she had been specifically told that it was Mal's operation and she and her men were only there as a support role should things turn for the worse.

Due to the clandestine approach of the first phase of the operation, Mal had to be dropped quite a distance away from the Area of Operations. Mal's Infil point much to his dismay was several blocks away from the target area, virtually kilometres because of the large city blocks filling the South West corner of Tarsonis before reaching the primary AO, "The Gutter". Mal knew exact who he was there for, and exactly who he was after, with a name and a rough description of the man he was after who could provide more than enough information as to where exactly the HVT was, right now. The designation for the HVT, Agent X41822N a designation which even she didn't know she was given just yet. Only Mal knew anything more about the HVT, that she was Blonde, green eyes, fairly tall for her age and considering the circumstances, is probably in a great deal of personal distress. In the briefing which was also given the Marines of the 22nd she was described vaguely as a Class A individual, which meant that she had a large deal of interest vested in her from higher up and top brass. The only reason why a Wrangler was also sent on this mission was that there was a large degree of suspicion that the HVT was a teep/teek, in other words she was the rarest of the rare, an individual which had both the ability to Telepathically connect with people around her as well as the ability to perform Telekinesis. At that point in time the only 2 other people were confirmed to be at or above the same value as the HVT.

The Wranglers had a special ability, having the Psi Index rating of within the range of 2 to 5 meant that generally they could sense the presence of other people with either a higher or lower PI index rating than themselves, albeit somewhat limited and met with a number of different factors limiting this success rate. Mal's PI value was a mere 3.5, the HVT's according to the logs suggested she had at least 8, which meant that the individual might potentially hold the ability of Telekinesis which is considered extremely rare, even in a sector with millions upon billions of people scattered throughout it, most people sat at the measly value of 1 meaning little to no psychic powers whatsoever. With a value of 5 and above however meant that the Ghost Program was extremely interested in the individual, the natural ability of Telepathy meant that the individual had a broad range of psionic abilities which ranged from simple mind reading to creation of feedback loops.

The 22nd marine division, more what was left of it, ironically comprised of a mere 22 marines including CO's; but they were the best of the best, with the highest mission and assignment success rate of any other division in the sector, the best of the best. Lead by the steely eyed Major Ndoci who was intent on living up to her Division's past history in achieving results, whether that be against the Zerg or otherwise they were the Confederate Marine Corps special operations forces, to be sent in for anything and everything ranging from the most dangerous to the most sensitive of missions. They are to arrive gun barrel pointing first out of drop ships and leading from the front of the actions, living by the old world Earth's Marine doctrine of "Marines run towards the sound of chaos" they move at a moment's notice and taking pride in being some of the few and the proud.

As last minute preparations occurred before the exfil of Mal, Ndoci took the time to remind Mal that he had exactly two hours, with or without his signal she and her forces were going to hit the deck right in the thick of it and start kicking the doors down of the target building. Mal smiled reassuringly as she pressed her intensity of her words into him, and replied simply with "I'll be sure to make sure that things don't come to that, you're only here as a support role, remember that, that force reconnaissance stuff stays behind", she noticeably grunted as responded "Yeah, whatever, just get the fick off of my Drop ship Wrangler". As she finished her sentence the Pilot's voice echoed through the cabin "ETA 30 seconds to first LZ, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" and with that he abruptly turned his back to her facing the VTOL's drop ramp bracing for a landing. With a gentler thud than he had anticipated the drop ship touched the deck and ramp rapidly slammed forward into the ground extending about 3 meters to the ground, he grabbed his gear and held his head down with his forearm and quickly disembarked as the words of the pilot echoed in his head.

Mal now standing looking down a normal-ish looking main road in Southern Tarsonis now had the unenviable task of traversing the distance between his LZ and the primary AO, with the attention of the civilians around him surprised at the sight of seeing military aircraft first swoop around a section of road slowing down the traffic on the road to a halt to only them drop off a single individual right in the middle of a public street to only then take off as abruptly as it had landed. Mal dressed in full civilian clothes so as to not draw too much attention to himself as he traversed the distance to the main AO, beneath his somewhat normal looking attire for the lower class area of Tarsonis was something he intended to use to a great deal of effect considering the area of operations, a personal force field device which at a moment's notice could be triggered by the User's mind to form a field which could stop almost anything short of a nuke exploding danger close, or so it was described to him.

Mal had decided considering the amount of back up he had at a moment's notice which was circling the area out of sight that the carrying of a personal defence weapon would be unnecessary relying on his own physical abilities above those who may wish to deal him or the HVT harm. Only now did he remind himself the HVT's name, November Anabella Terra, a surname which signified a large deal of importance; a scion of the Old Families, a descendant of great wealth and luxury who was probably going through hell at the moment considering the events of the last few days, with the mass casualties her family faced along with a flameless large explosion occurring atop of their tower. All of which pointed in the direction that the origins were of paranormal activities, or psionic talents, either of which were the case a more direct enquiry needed to be carried out by more conventional means as 6 months had passed since the last anyone had heard from November "Nova" Terra. Confirmed reports of an individual similar to the features of Nova had been sighted and in relation to the crime lord, Fagin, a dangerous man who controlled a large part of South West Tarsonis, none of which mattered to anyone involved in the operation as for them Fagin was small fry.

Mal over the course of an hour had managed to traverse a distance of 3 Kilometres down urban suburbia towards the compound Fagin was supposedly commonly found in. The first 2 Kilometres were as expected, however the last seemed like traversing through an urban maze, meeting countless dead ends and unsightly scenes both inside and out of residential premises that lined the alleyways. It was just a few hours into the evening edging towards nightfall, the sun was still fairly high in the sky during the 27 hour day periods on Tarsonis but in the Gutter, the sky managed to remain dark, with dark clouds of pollution overhead and a lack of lighting anywhere to be seen. It was unsettlingly dark, the air damp and smelling of alcohols, various chemicals and various oils, the walk ways lined with grates and gutters, with dark fluid, possibly oils running down the gutters, the grates visibly lined to the brim with some form of fluid which was too off putting to smell but didn't need to be examined to know what it was, considering it hadn't rained in days.

He had reached the outskirts of the building, with seemingly little resistance from the natives of the area, being a large amount of people passed out or in the process of passing out under the influence of drugs and alcohol or an overdose of both. The hour went by slowly as Mal pressed on, deeper into the Gutter system drawing closer to the compound, he hadn't progressed as quickly he had hoped and now only had 27 minutes before whether he liked it or not the Valkyrie was going somehow going to land an entire squad of heavily armed marines into the Gutter kicking doors down, moving heaven and earth to secure the HVT. Mal moved post haste towards the building, at this point at a wreck less speed disregarding compromising the operation, sprinting at full speed through the alleyways, jumping over walls and leaping over trash bins in order to make up time. Mal made it to the front of the compound with little more than 10 minutes to spare to be only met with a little resistance at the door. He faced 3 armed men at the door to which he could tell were all intent on not letting anyone get in or out in one piece. As calm as he was, and level headed he decided to reason with the men, or at least have an attempt to, at first he was met with stiff resistance but at this point Fagin's own henchmen and mercenaries he had hired were on the point of turning on him regardless, they decided to take Mal's word that he was simply a visitor here to see him and ask him a few questions in relation to matters relating to the purchase of a large quantity of drugs and black market items.

At this point Ndoci was getting terribly impatient, with little more than 10 minutes to go she ordered her men to load up on hollow point 8mm ammunition; each man, one after another loaded 200 round magazines into their C-14 Impaler Rifles and cocked the weapon systems to the rear keeping their fingers on the trigger. They were preparing to do whatever means necessary to kill anyone and anything that stood between them and their HVT. Ndoci was standing closest to the door, turning around and practically shouting at the men "The egg heads upstairs want a HVT located in these parts, a brief description of what she looks like is on your HUD, if she gets so much as a ficking paper cut on her, you get court martialled before lights out. Anyone in here that gets in your way, consider them hostile and expendable, shoot anything that moves". A Sergeant asks "But what about the Wrangler?" to which Ndoci growls back with much emphasis on a single word "anything". With 5 minutes left on the window her HUD indicates that she's getting an incoming message from a Tier 1 Source, not from the Director but from General Ledbetter. The message was long, the only parts Ndoci took from it was "Your orders have changed, effective immediately you are to resume command of your current operation and undergo any steps deemed necessary to complete your current operation as soon as possible". With that in mind she barked at the pilot to drop her and her men down, right now at the secondary LZ, right in front of the compound, to which the pilot hastily obliged and within moments quickly changed course from a holding pattern to immediately down on the ground.

The VTOL slammed down onto the ground, this time with a much more notable thud hitting the deck, the Valkyrie's hardened Neosteel door slammed down onto the ground, out came Ndoci with fierce intensity shouting passionately "Go go go!" quickly followed up with tactical instructions for Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta teams with just as much intensity. On her way off the drop ship, she flung out her bayonet from it's holster and threw it at the door of the compound screaming at the top of her lungs "Kill everything inside that compound" as her marines behind her charged forwards, C-14's aimed squarely away at the door to the primary compound as other teams began splitting up to secure other, smaller areas of the compound. "Delta team, on my ass and stay there!" Ndoci yelled as her squad moved up to take aggressive positions around the main door which seemed to have been left intentionally slightly open with enough space for an arm to fit in between the gap.

Fagin was on the Fourth floor of the main compound, the primary control hub of his entire empire of the slums of Tarsonis. Here he kept his most valuable assets and assortment of belongings, primarily a large collection of pistols and other firearms he always kept at arm's reach. In the corner of one of the rooms on the level lay Nova, curled up into the fetal position against a corner of the room, eyes wide open, her blood shot emerald eyes filled with tears and pain. Nova clasped her face with both hands almost constantly, occasionally hammering away at her head trying to quiet down the roars that were the thought of others In the building and others around her. With a PI rating of her own, the issue was trying not to read the thoughts of others, and not the other way around as with people with lower PI ratings than that of her own. Her brightly blonde hair had seen better days, only occasionally getting washed, she'd be lucky to get the chance to even once a week under Fagin, if he got his way it would be once a month. Her hair once soft silky and smooth now lay tattered in strands on her head, covered with substances even she could not name, nor did she quite care. Nova's face was now scarred, with scratches and bruises on her cheeks and jaw line which made it hard for her talk. Nova was having the worse days of her life, at the age of 15 growing up in the lap of luxury, this was a far cry from anything she had experienced before, and had never been exposed to anything apart from the best of condition the sector had to offer as a scion of one of the Old Families of Tarsonis, but it was about to get worse.

Mal had convinced the people at the door to not only let him in, but to see Fagin himself, which often is a very rare occurrence for anyone but very important persons, but luckily for him, Mal had packed enough credits on him to make it out that he was a potential buyer of a large, huge quantity of drugs and otherwise elicit products Fagin had to offer. As Mal and his escorts from the door slowly progressed up the huge compound through dark, unlit stair wells which looked menacing for anyone but the people who frequented the compound. Winding up the staircase he noted on every floor more and more people who had either been killed or lay dying from Fagin's anger bursts which had been occurring more frequently since his ownership of a military grade psi-screen which has been proven to cause psychosis on its users after 7 hours at a time, Fagin hasn't turned his off in weeks which alarmed Mal. As he drew closer to the Fourth level of the compound, he began hearing screams of agony and pain, female screams of agony and pain as he went up the stair case, he gulped at realizing his headache was only getting worse, a sign which symbolized he was drawing nearer to a person with psionic potential, she was lashing out with her mind to no avail. It was Nova, and she was close. Nova's cries of pain echoed through the halls, Fagin enjoyed it, he sadistically enjoyed seeing her body curl up to only stretch back out again repeatedly, all the while screaming as Fagin had described it, music to his ears which he stood and listened and watched her crumple to the floor gave him a sense of ecstasy no drug could provide him as well as she could at the press of a button.

Fagin kept a device which had been known to cause insurmountable amounts of pain to a psionic individual, with greater effects on individuals who had higher PI ratings as they were more sensitive to the current, a remote device activated this and was secured on his wrist with a dead man switch as part of the functionality. Fagin used this as a security measure against Nova, who he knew at a moment's chance could and would "fry" his brains and cause his brain and cranial organs to literally spontaneously erupt out of his head creating a gory mess with little more than his skull and teeth remaining intact. If it weren't for his psi screen this would have became a reality soon after Nova's arrival to the compound with the intent to kill Fagin after her first encounter with him. With this new tool, and both of the things he has going for him, it made Nova virtually powerless to stop him, if she even so much as to pose a threat to him at any moment, Fagin would surely and immediately turn to using his shock device against her, nor could she lash out at him psionically like anyone else she encounters. Mal was close now, now on the 4th floor himself and about to enter the room where Nova lay on the floor breathless and in immeasurable pain, but nothing superficially. Mal enters the room with his escorts at the door in tow, Mal immediately activates his force field which forms a light blue tinge around him. He moves cautiously and slowly towards a vulnerable Nova, as he moves towards her he tells Fagin his real intentions of why he's at his compound and as to what significance Nova has on a scale much larger than he can possibly fathom, to no Avail. Fagin loses it and shoots dead his own accomplices who let Mal in to only then attempt to fire shots into Mal, to no avail. He hastily attempts to reload his fresh magazine into his aged P-220 pistol, Mal interrupts him, asking him sarcastically "I guess you don't want me to have Nova?" Fagin becomes infuriated and fires even more shots at Mal, reaching for another pistol to aid him in doing so not realizing all his bullets are having no effect on his target.

Hearing the sound of repeated gunfire, and reminding herself that Mal isn't armed caused her to move with a sense of urgency and vigour. Her men had already swept clear some of the outer facilities of the compound, splitting up into two main teams clearing sector by sector. Ndoci tapped the Marine in front of her's shoulder to signify a Flash grenade to be used, overkill for what she knew was inside. Thermal imaging had detected 8 persons who were on the ground floor, 4 of which were spread out across the room and all had their pistols aimed solely at the door way in, the other 4 began spreading themselves out, ducking behind cover. Ndoci didn't give them time to react, she quickly opened the door and a flash grenade was tossed into the room, as well as another Lockdown grenade be thrown in through an open slit in the wall to the side of the building. Both grenades landed into the room and were timed to go off seconds after, the men inside began blasting away at the door not knowing what else could be done. Moments after the grenades went off even more gunfire went off, this time being fired wildly into the air as the 5 marines behind Ndoci ran into the room meticulously gunning down all 8 gunmen in an accurate hail of gunfire, 3 more men came down the staircase as this was happening to which were also torn to shreds by the hollow point ammunition impacting soft flesh, they weren't armed, not that Ndoci cared as she rapidly continued up the stair case, rifle's pointed upwards. At this point Ndoci had swapped to her side arm, realizing that the full sized combat rifle wouldn't fit the confinements of the stairwell. Her side arm of choice was a military grade P-500 pistol which hadn't yet even reach production stage let alone get out of testing; not that she cared, she wanted to look flash with the best and shiniest equipment available off the shelf. Primary trait that interested her most about the sidearm was the fact that a single shot could rip the head off of a human if it hit virtually anywhere on the surface of the skull.

Nova regains consciousness after being closed to knocked out to a spray of hot brass casings raining down around her and Fagin etching closer towards Mal firing more and more shots one after another, all to no avail; not that he cared, Fagin wanted nothing more than to keep firing away regardless of how ineffective it may be, thinking that sooner or later he would chip away at the shield. Mal slowly walks towards Fagin, seemingly unphased by the face of pure zealous on Fagin blasting away at what are now two P-220's, not reloading either of them, simply picking up one after another off of wherever he could find on in the room. Nova realizes his is her chance to get back at Fagin and teeks some of the bullets away from Mal, only to then be interrupted by Ndoci and two marines storming into the room via the stairwell and followed up by 3 more. Nova teeks the bullets around the room and into Fagin's backside, specifically aiming a few into his remote control device on his armlet disabling it; lunging forward in pain only to then be shot by short controlled bursts of C-14 fire and finally a final shot to the chest with Ndoci's P-500, ripping through his chest cavity and blowing a sizeable exit hole through his back; Fagin finally collapses in a pile of gory mess which in Nova's eyes was a fitting end for such a being, she was content at his end for a short moment to only then look up and see the bright lights of the Marines CMC combat armour suits which were clearly overkill for urban operations.

Mal slowly approaches Nova who is still lying down on the ground looking up at them, squinting because of the bright lights against her face. Suddenly a pair of hands come out towards her, palms up and a few inches apart, followed by the words "your safe now" coming from Mal. Ndoci looks on at the Wrangler, clearly peeved off at how sloppily the situation was handled and went through the would have could have should have's on the spot with Mal, but he wasn't listening. Mal knew that just by looking at her she had a very, very high PI rating; definitely higher than that of a normal ghost judging by the sizeable headache he was getting by being in such close proximity to her. With the additional weight the building was under, because of the presence of several marines now all in the building at once to join up with Ndoci the building was on the verge of collapse, as each Marine in his combat armour weight little less than the average metropolitan bus. The building began to cave way due to the poor materials and aging materials used in its construction; Ndoci quickly thrust out her arm into the dry wall, easily punching through the wall out onto the other side and knocked over a segment of the wall. As Ndoci ran towards Nova to get her to safety the floor caved in between them, but Nova psionically held not only the floor up, but the entire segment everybody was on. Ndoci looked at her in disbelief, she took a moment to fully grasp what was happening, and clearly stunned she then requested an immediate evac from the Valkyrie on station from what was now a floating platform with 24 people stuck on it, 22 of whom each weighed the equivalent of a bus. The Pilot knew not to question the situation as Ndoci barked "NOW!" into her coms as she clearly saw the amount of distress Nova was in trying to hold the building together. The Pilot swung the VTOL around opening the door onto the hole in the wall to which Nova was picked up and moved into by Mal followed by every marine thereafter.

The Valkyrie then quickly left the area onto an awaiting Battlecruiser overhead assigned to them by General Ledbetter; Ndoci radio'd in and with a sigh of relief said to oversight command "This is Ndoci, HVT secure, we're RTB 5 Mikes out".


End file.
